


( and everything is going to the beat )

by eldritchbee



Series: hope side / despair side [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29049270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchbee/pseuds/eldritchbee
Summary: “Did you think, maybe, you care too much about what people think of you?”---Ibuki has phenomenal hearing. If anything, Celes can use it to train herself better. Spoilers for the entire events of the first two games.
Relationships: Celestia Ludenberg & Mioda Ibuki, Celestia Ludenberg/Mioda Ibuki
Series: hope side / despair side [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472216
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	( and everything is going to the beat )

_ "and you said it was like fire around the brim" _

* * *

“You lose again,” Celes’s voice is lilting and soft enough that it takes a moment for most people to detect the undertones of  _ smugness _ she always felt when she won. If  _ Ibuki  _ had detected - and Celes is certain she did, her hearing  _ is _ phenomenal - it she didn’t seem to care much. She was still furrowing her brow over the set of cards that had lost her the game. “Would you like a tip?”

She has to admit, usually playing more than two rounds of anything with the same person would bore her to tears. But Kuzuryuu was correct,  _ “she’s, uh, interesting” _ , enough so that Celes was willing to play with her several times a week, several times a day. Maybe because most gamblers who were as  _ loud _ as Ibuki were more like braggarts who broke down all too easily when Celestia Ludenburg graced their tables. Most weren’t so chatty, unless they were so nervous in Celes’s silence that they tripped and stumbled over their words - laid themselves bare. Further, most weren’t so  _ excited _ to play with her, unless they underestimated her, thought there was  _ no way they could lose _ . 

Ibuki seemed just as excited to  _ lose _ as she was to - well, not really  _ win _ but -

_ (“Celestia? Ooh, so mysterious. And a little scary! Hey, Kuzuryuu, does she take people’s pinkies?” _

_ “I told you no one’s taking anyone’s fucking pinkie, stop asking me about it.” _

_ “Or you’ll take my pinkie?” _

_ “I’ve never done anything so gruesome. Though I can’t say I haven’t been involved in situations where a man’s whole life is on the line. Wife, dog, children, house, home, kidneys -”  _

_ “Oh, that was a lie, wasn’t it?” _

_ “... pardon me?”) _

\- but more to  _ figure her out _ . 

She wasn’t the first to do  _ that  _ either. Building lie upon lie with stitches of truth always made people hungry for more. For those who wanted to hurt her, she always let her tower of lies topple over onto them, bury them in rubble while she makes away with everything they had to offer. Ibuki wasn’t the first to add companionship, a desire to be closer, to be “friends” who know each other's secrets - ?

_ (“Did you think, maybe, you care too much about what people think of you?” _

_ Ibuki caught it, a flicker of confusion, a flicker of rage. _

_ “Pardon me?”  _

_ “If there’s one thing I learned in life, people are more themselves when they do things that they love! And I think that it makes them happier, so they know they have something to fall back on when they get hurt. I always have music, even when everyone else is gone, I always have music.” _

_ She tucked that away for later. If lying didn’t work, then holding truth hostage was the next step.) _

“You’re going to give me a tip? Seriously? Ce-les? Celes? Are you okay?”

_ \- those  _ ones always ran away in the end. At this moment, she wonders if she should warn Ibuki - and her classmates, especially Kirigiri and Naegi - that if they offered her their secrets then they risked losing them the moment Celes found herself in a bind.

“I’ll win either way.” And then, she leans in to whisper in Ibuki’s ear. As she does, the smell of tea shifts to bubblegum and metal.

“You lose again.”   
  
“But I  _ almost _ got you that time. I heard your teeth click again.”

Celes moves to shuffle the cards, making a mental note to train her mouth better - even the smallest tell could fold disaster. “ _ But _ you lost. So now you have to make me a new outfit. Do you want to know my measurements?”

“Ibuki  _ told _ you. I’d do that whether I won or lost.”

* * *

The truck crashes into the fire with resounding speed, even leaning in, with Koizumi playing with the camera, zooming in, you can’t see the blood. “ _ That _ was anticlimactic,” Kuzuryuu sighs. “The fire would have hurt a lot more.”

Ibuki taps her feet, “no. This  _ def _ initely hurt her more. Last second, you could hear it, you could  _ hear _ it,” she puts a finger to her ear. “The way she screamed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title and top lyric are from "Sleepyhead" by Passion Pit.


End file.
